General advice - camping abroad.

davidlizard

I am off camping in Greece with my wife and two kids (3 and 6) in August. The plan is that we use the tent solely for sleeping and with the money we are saving have breakfast/lunch/dinner/drinks at the nearby tavernas - so no cooking! The bulk of each day will be spent on the beach. We will be flying there so everything we need we will have to carry and be within the overall 20kg/person weight limit and allowed on an aircraft.

We have never camped as a family before (and I last went camping around 20 years ago!). We do plan a dry run sometime, and have had several goes at putting the tent up.

Can anyone offer any tips, websites, things to take/not take.

We currently have:
A decent, lightweight but roomy tent (12kg when packed including pegs) that can take some fairly nasty weather.
Special pegs that should be ok to screw/hammer into hard/rocky ground.
Sleeping bag liners (in lieu of sleeping bags).
Compact airbed type things (two will just about fit in a shoebox).
Some tent repair tape to repair rips and tears.
General stuff - earplugs, torches, bottle openers, lights, mozzie coil holder.
Decent rucksacks - the tent and sleeping stuff will easily fit into one of them.

Is there other stuff we should be taking - I plan to get some spare tent poles should one snap. Also, is security likely to be an issue? Is it worth getting special camping insurance or will just general travel insurance suffice? Anything else we should be considering?

It looks like excluding food, the holiday will cost us around £200 each including flights, ferries and campsite fees which for just under 3 weeks in August is great value. If it does go pear shaped, then we will find a room somewhere.

All advice gratefully received!

mchale

Greece in august, in a tent, you have forgotten the most important item a: air con unit

davidlizard

Temperature has been my wifes main concern about camping, however in previous years out there we never bother with air conditioning in the room as we prefer to acclimatise.

At night the temperature should drop to "bearable". During day, if its too hot I'll sit in the sea!

travelgran

Take some cheap and light plastic cups or 'glasses'. Eating/drinking out all the time is all very well but a quick drink of juice for the children, beer or wine for you, water for you all, is always welcome. We met a couple years ago in France who were having their first short holiday minus the kids. They ended up buying cartons of yogurt so they could use the pots for drinking from! Remember in the sun the temperature inside a tent is considerably higher than outside!

DCFC79

What about pillows eg an inflatable 1 maybe

ManAtHome

Washing line and pegs (can also be hacked for tent repair), solar battery/phone charger, 2 or 3 spare bottle openers...

I'm guessing you'll have the medical kit sorted (IIRC you're an Islands 'regular' - do you already have Poffley's Island Hopping book?).

Ponkle22

I know in Italy their campsites are amongst the trees and all organised so everyone gets some shade - but even then everyone has to bail out of their tent very, very early, as it gets so hot. So I hope you find a shady spot to camp in Greece. Hopefully it will be a similar set-up.

What about electric hook up? We bought a stand alone fan in a supermarket in Crete as our hotel apartment only had air con in one bedroom and it was unabearable elsewhere in the apartment. We tried wet flannels on top of the fan and a bowl of water nearby but it was never enough (though it was slightly more bearable with the hot air circulating). In fact, ensure your tent is the type you can open up to the world on many sides
s - for thorough ventilation.

How will you store/secure your valuables, passports etc?

Sounds like a fun adventure. Make sure you are VERY near water you can plunge into - you don't want to be walking very far with the children in that heat.

Enjoy - it sounds like an adventure.

oh yeah, Gaffer tape (or equivalent) if the tent develops a rip - that would be an essential buy for me.

Make sure you have read all the reviews and you are in a family camp site and not a 18-30's type beach resort - there are a lot of them where you are going - so best to review the beaches and/or campsites now and suss it out.

Ponkle22 PS: Please report back to us after your adventure so we all know if it was a MSE success or not - you can test it all for us.

Ponkle22

PS page. I had an afterthought - I popped into the Trip Advisor forums for Greece and typed Camping - the first few posts that popped up were advising people that there was very noisy nightclubs etc next to certain campsites - so do spend some time in some review sites and pick the best for your needs.

Hope this helps and apologies if you have already done this.

davidlizard

Many thanks all for the suggestions!

We have an ipod which is good for keeping the kids entertained - no telly this year - will definitely investigate solar powered means of charging. Great idea!

I have a copy of the Greek Island Hopping book, albeit a little bit out of date now. This book gave me the idea for camping, and we had a quick nosey around a site last summer. Medical kit is sorted, and we have a 10ft length of string that comes in handy for all sorts of things, as well as being a clothes line!

Pillows is also something else I have not considered - did think about simply putting my head on a rucksack, but the wife has suggested the inflatable types people use on aeroplanes - something else to test during the dry run.

Plastic cups are a good idea - we can also buy the larger bottles of drink which will work out cheaper than the smaller 500ml bottles. And the wife will get cross if I drink the wine out of the bottle!

Ponkle22

Just take pillowcases, then layf your tshirts etc into them for pillows.

On crete I did buy in a beach inflatable shop small inflatable pillow but it was too tiny for its purpose.

davidlizard

Thinking about it, the kids will probably have inflatable things for the beach, so one of them inside a T-shirt will do fine!

We plan to visit the western Cyclades this year - probably going to Milos then working our way back to Athens via probably Serifos and Sifnos. The islands should hopefully not be too noisy - I don't think they are party islands - if it is, then its earplugs in and move on earlier than planned.

Valuables - either safety deposit box or keep them on us I guess. Apart from passports, my wallet and the ipod, there will be nothing of any value.

The tent opens up front and back so hopefully should help with ventilation - I like the idea about the fan so will experiment in the garden.